


Checkmate

by kurgaya



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Established Relationship, Haki, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:43:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7479273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurgaya/pseuds/kurgaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>His captain’s lying there, knocked stone-cold on the deck, and all Zoro can feel is relief.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Checkmate

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [zoluweek](http://zolu-week.tumblr.com/) day 5 "loyalty".

 

There’s blood on his knees from hitting the deck; a bow forced upon him, one he’ll remember for days through the bruises, black and blue and the skin broken there. Winds whistles over the lawn, howling a sharp lament through the Sunny’s skeleton shape, her sails folded up and masts a spinal taut. Adam’s wood is burnt and blown to pieces around him, and Zoro cringes as the adrenaline - the bravado and calm he'd tried to maintain - wanes to shock and thrums of pain.

His captain’s lying there, knocked stone-cold on the deck, and all Zoro can feel is _relief_.

“Franky, you’re a _lifesaver_ ,” he wheezes, the cyborg’s arms gentle in their support, blue and red and blurring in Zoro’s vision, cold metal and sky and hands and the blood-stained deck merging in front of his eyes. Franky’s saying something, the cogs and motors of his body and thoughts whirring indistinct to Zoro; dents and scratches cover his mechanical arms, blood dripping onto the baby-blue polish, and though Franky’s arms don’t have the skin to burn, he feels like he’s on _fire_ as he tries to maneuver Zoro off his knees.

“I - can’t,” the swordsman admits, only hunching further over himself at Franky’s attempts, agony blazing like wildfire in his chest. It feels as though his ribcage is squeezing in on itself, muscle and bone crunching together to tear the breath from his lungs, but it’s his legs that refuse to move, painless and numb and _useless_ besides anchoring him to the sight of Luffy crumpled just feet away.

Relief, Zoro remembers, feeling sick with it.

Fingers snap in front of his nose and Zoro jerks, lifting a woozy expression up to the crease in Franky’s brow. The shipwright’s jaw is clenched into a wonky rectangle, concern protruding his knobbly chin out at a slant, and he looks uncharacteristically fierce in the second it takes Zoro to blink away the sweat and blood dribbling into his functioning eye.

“You stopped it?” Zoro asks - or slurs, it's hard to tell with the toll of _command_ in his ears; _Zoro_ , it rings, a heavy, sinister utterance of his name. He's been addressed as a lot of things in his life, called even more behind his back, but never has his name been spoken with such a snarl, used against him with such disregard.

Franky nods, calling to someone just out of sight: _Nami, Usopp, and Sanji_ , Zoro fears, desperate to follow the cyborg’s line of sight as he remembers his scattered crewmates, Nami and Usopp taking cover by the rigging, and Sanji crashing into unconsciousness from where he was flung some time ago at the helm.

“They're fine, bro, they're fine,” Franky assures, pressing the bloodied haramaki further into Zoro’s side. “Bit shaken, but fine. Robin was right you know - as ever.” He laughs - or tries to, the sound forced and humourless and lost to Zoro’s hissing curse of pain.

Franky says something else, talking urgently to the tottering approach of someone else; long strides, a clattering step - it's Brook, face gaunt and teeth chattering in response, blade held tightly in a fist of bone.

“Chopper?” Zoro mumbles, interrupting the speechless sounds drifting over him. They sound like the wind, the pair of them, voices howling indistinct from their bodies of metal and bone, but it's the last of their wayward nakama that Zoro listens for.

“On his way,” Franky rumbles.

“Zoro, my dear,” says Brook, and Zoro has just enough of his sanity left to frown at the gentle tone. _Must be in trouble_ , he thinks, as the skeleton continues, “Can you lie down? You are unusually pale.”

“So are you,” Zoro shoots back, unable to help himself. One of them touches his shoulder and he jerks, their hand encouraging him and then - when he still doesn’t budge - forcing him down onto his side. Hurt blitzs through him, _no!_ he wants to cry; the hand falters as Zoro snarls then presses on, soft words blurring with the alarm bells wailing over the fading toll of Luffy’s voice in his ears.

 _Zoro_ , he'd said; standing there all embellished in shadow, a silhouette against the sun, against a light he had stolen as though to rule with the gold.

 _Zoro,_ he’d said, crestfallen expression exaggerated like a mask; he’d been pale, blood-splattered and angry, his face a cracked clay at the break of the first mate’s quiet dissent.

 _You too?_ Luffy had asked, and Zoro remembers squaring his shoulders, hands at his side, Wadō Ichimonji and his other katana humming from within their sheaths.

(What was it - that he’d said?)

“Shock,” Franky declares, and Zoro blinks, depth-skewed eye staring blearily across the deck; he’s on his side, he realises, Adam’s wood polish tickling his nose. Voices rise up around him, people move - _people_ , plural, the crew no doubt - and as Zoro watches the deck stain scarlet before him, he is dimly aware of someone carrying Luffy away.

Brook still isn't laughing - but as movements blur and colours fade to a haze of _crew, it’s your crew, you’re safe here_ , there is laughter in Zoro’s ears, a surprised cackle, childish and cruel.

 _Whoooa!_ it had called, an awed shrill over the sound of knees hitting the deck, arms and elbows and cries smashing into the wood. Only one was left standing, three sprawled around him and the sole knelt at his feet. _I wondered if that would work!_

 _Did you - or had you always known?_ Zoro had not been able to say, helpless but to stare at the victorious wiggle of Luffy’s sandals, listening to the sounds of Nami cursing and the rubberman celebrating. He can’t say it now, shivering in the chill of the wind through the Sunny, immobile and pathetic between the shadow of her sails. Chopper is speaking but all Zoro can hear is _pain_ , and this is the aftermath of his loyalty, he realises.

Is this always going to be the aftermath of his loyalty?

 

 

 

Luffy is sitting there when he wakes, bruised green, bandaged white, and curled on the chair as though he’s a pile of crumpled linen to be thrown, and all Zoro can feel is relief. Everything goddamn _hurts_ \- he’s so thirsty he would drink the _tide_ \- but the sight of his other half perched at his bedside, exhausted and sick and exemplifying exactly how Zoro feels, is enough to allay the worst of the pain.

He reaches out, unfazed by the evidence of Chopper’s handiwork (bandages and stitches, a catheter and tubing leading up to the IV drip), and brushes his knuckles against Luffy’s knee, startling the rubberman from whatever thoughts are keeping him away.

“Zoro,” Luffy says, uttering the name with a soft hesitation, but Zoro’s brows still dip, mouth twitching before he can prevent the flinch. It’s only a slight thing, hardly worth being called a _flinch_ , but Luffy’s expression twists at the sight of it; he squishes himself further into the chair, pulling away from Zoro’s hand.

“Do you want me to get Chopper?” he asks,  _d’you want me to go?_ Zoro hears, the little doctor more of an excuse and a means of an end.

“Luffy.”

“It’s not that late,” he blabbers on, as though Zoro has _any_ idea what time or day it is. “He won’t mind.”

Zoro sighs, trying to reach out once again for his partner. The rubbery man squirms out of the way, eyes darting to the hand with every desire to return the honest touch, but still holding himself back despite Zoro’s insistence.

“Luffy,” the first mate repeats, firmer and worried this time. Immediately, Luffy ceases to fidget, a haunted expression lowering to consider the IV-tangled reach of Zoro’s arm.

“You okay?” is all Zoro can think to ask.

Slowly, Luffy replies with a _yeah_ , but then glowers at the audacity of his own lie. “No. Nobody’s angry with me,” he corrects, admitting this like it’s a _problem_ , and Zoro feels himself smiling despite the pain, because _that’s_ his captain through and through.

“I can be mad at you, if you want.”

Luffy actually seems to contemplate this for a moment, which is both endearing and entirely ridiculous. “Not really,” he says with a guilty titter, scratching his neck where his hat should be. “I just want Zor - _ah_ \- I just want you to be okay.”

“I’m -” Zoro pauses, weighing up the consequences of his own bold-faced lie and deciding against it. “I’m glad you’re yourself again. We were running out of options.”

“You were running out of ways of keeping me distracted,” Luffy counters, which is - _err_ , _damn,_ Zoro thinks, thinking back to the last few days and cursing.

“The others said,” Luffy adds, catching the, _yeah that's true_ , in Zoro’s expression. “I hurt you. Like at Whiskey Peak.”

Zoro doesn't deny that people were hurt, although he wishes he could. “Whiskey Peak was ages ago - and no where near the same. That was worse.”

“Worse?” the other echoes, with a tone of a man in total disbelief. “But I -”

“Weren’t yourself this time. We _knew_ that - you think Franky would’ve hit you that hard otherwise?”

“No,” Luffy mutters, glancing off to the side. No doubt he has already spoken about what happened with the rest of the crew, whatever Franky had said to explain his behaviour still lingering in the captain’s mind.

“Nami would’ve,” Zoro notes, attempting humour in the face of his partner’s gloom.

It falls flat; Luffy doesn’t smile. “I scared her - and the others.”

“And me,” Zoro admits, because he can't deny _that_ either, no matter how much he wants to. Luffy _had_ scared him, but he’d been scared _for_ Luffy too, just as the rest of their nakama had. Seeing their captain lose himself to some bizarre, paranormal force on a creepy-arse island in the middle of nowhere isn't exactly their ideal pastime.

“But s’okay, ‘cause you’re back now,” Zoro assures, waving his hand as though to ask, _are you going to take this yet?_ He's never been the best at comfort - just because people take reassurance from what he says doesn't mean he's any _good_ at it - so he moves the topic on without much delay, having said what needed to be said.

“You got my swords?” he asks, peering over the bedside. “And any water? You’d have thought -” He catches his other half's eye, both of them, red and dribbling with tears, and that thought promptly derails. “ _Whoa_ , Luffy, _shit_ -”

He pushes himelf up, intent on reaching his captain despite the creak and clatter from the IV; something cracks, hopefully the _bed_ , and pain _flares_ in his chest, squashing the last of his breath out into a wheeze.

Luffy scrubs a hand over his eyes to smudge the tears, before gesturing frantically at Zoro. “No, no - sit still! Chopper’d be mad if you moved!”

Zoro curses but refuses to lie back, prepared to trap Luffy to the bed through dinner if that's what it takes to get his point across. “Come on then, stop crying and _make me_ ,” he taunts, and Luffy jumps out of the chair to meet him halfway, palms pressing gently against the first mate - only for them both to freeze.

 _Zoro, you too?_ not-Luffy had asked, dark colours of the royal haki brimming in his eyes. _Aren't you loyal to your captain?_

And Zoro had braced himself, shoulders square but hands relaxed at his side, able but unwilling to draw Wadō Ichimonji from his side.

 _I haven't called you_ captain _since you lost yourself to that_ thing _._

“I wouldn’t. _I wouldn’t_ ,” Luffy breathes, his repetition of reassurance guiding them both back into reality. He has sat back down at Zoro’s side, but on the bed this time, hands clenched carefully around his other half’s bandaged wrist. Without his hat he looks - _small_ , and he sounds even smaller when he promises, “I won’t, I swear. I won’t use it ever again.”

“You didn’t even know if it would work,” Zoro recalls, as if this, in any way, will make up for the feel of wood beneath his knees or the rush of his head tipping forward to the ground.

Luffy certainly doesn’t think so. “I still used it,” he concedes, shaking his head. “I wanted to! I was angry and you were arguing and I just wanted you to _do what I said_.”

And he _had_.

“I’m sorry,” Luffy says, and though he’s apologising sincerely, subdued as he rarely is on the seas, it doesn’t sound as though he’s asking for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”

Zoro smiles and turns his arm in Luffy’s grasp, offering his hand to his gold-hearted lover. “Captain,” he announces, encouraging Luffy’s head to rise. “Come ‘ere.”

Still the other hesitates, eyes tracking the IV line.

“I’m asking,” Zoro adds, giving his fingers a wiggle. The IV tube wobbles with it, and Luffy smiles uncertainly as he takes Zoro’s hand and kisses the scrapes littered there.

(That's - not quite what Zoro had been aiming for, but okay).

“For a hug?” Luffy confirms.

Zoro huffs, deadpanning, “You don’t have to make it sound so dumb,” and Luffy - laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
